It’s Up to Lionsgate to Make ‘Blair Witch’ Sequel…

Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick’s 1999 indie The Blair Witch Project was a game changer. It’s sequel, while disappointing at the time of release, has aged like fine wine.

While the groundbreaking first film was the first found-footage of its kind, the 2000 Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 went back to a traditional approach.

The duo have been talking trilogy since the release of Book of Shadows, although nothing has ever come into fruition.

With the recent popularity of found-footage, it’s sort of a shocker that a third film has never gone into production.

Lionsgate, who owns the rights to the franchise (through acquiring Artisan Entertainment), recently acquired Sanchez’ Exists out of the SXSW Film Festival. Reuniting Sanchez with Lionsgate provides hope that this franchise will live on, although it’s up to Lionsgate to pull the trigger.

“You know, Lionsgate owns the property, so it’s obviously up to them right now,” Sanchez tells Movies.com. “We’ve been talking to them for the past four or five years about doing it, but there’s nothing really in the works right now with us. But I think you’re right and maybe just being back at Lionsgate will help move things forward on another Blair Witch movie.”

Responding to talk about it being found-footage, Sanchez ends that notion: “That’s an observation I’ve talked to a lot of people about. There were other found-footage movies, but when Cloverfield did its thing there were a whole bunch of them afterward. I think a lot of people, including us, just didn’t know. We never imagined doing another Blair Witch found-footage movie. Our plan for the sequel is definitely not doing a found-footage movie. It took a while for people to just figure out what Blair had done; I’m not sure why. The film was so experimental and kind of came out of nowhere so people didn’t know what to think of it and weren’t sure if that style could be repeated.”

The Blair Witch Project went on to make $250M worldwide at the box office.